Tag Archives: Football

I'm breaking from my publishing schedule to make sure you read this. Because it's fucking great.

Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo has come out in favor of a Maryland bill that would allow marriage equality in the state. Fair enough. Maryland legislator Emmett Burns sent a letter to Ayanbadejo's boss – the owner of the team – saying that maybe he should tell his employee to shut his mouth and just play football.

That prompted a response from Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe that begins by reminding Burns that freedom of speech exists and as such Ayanbadejo can support whatever bill he wants to support, and then goes on to light into the legislator:

why do you hate freedom? Why do you hate the fact that other people want a chance to live their lives and be happy, even though they may believe in something different than you, or act different than you? How does gay marriage, in any way shape or form, affect your life? If gay marriage becomes legal, are you worried that all of a sudden you'll start thinking about penis? "Oh shit. Gay marriage just passed. Gotta get me some of that hot dong action!" Will all of your friends suddenly turn gay and refuse to come to your Sunday Ticket grill-outs? (Unlikely, since gay people enjoy watching football too.)

I can assure you that gay people getting married will have zero effect on your life. They won't come into your house and steal your children. They won't magically turn you into a lustful cockmonster. They won't even overthrow the government in an orgy of hedonistic debauchery because all of a sudden they have the same legal rights as the other 90 percent of our population—rights like Social Security benefits, child care tax credits, Family and Medical Leave to take care of loved ones, and COBRA healthcare for spouses and children. You know what having these rights will make gays? Full-fledged American citizens just like everyone else, with the freedom to pursue happiness and all that entails. Do the civil-rights struggles of the past 200 years mean absolutely nothing to you?

Michael Vick, the quarterback you want on your team if you can't figure out how to get rid of your coach, has finished serving his 23-month federal sentence for running a dog-fighting ring. And now he gets his NFL sentence.

It's not as though he's been out on the field these past two years, but commissioner Roger Goodell has decided that, if he turns out to be the fine, upstanding young man rehabilitated criminals are supposed to turn into, he can start playing long about Week 6 this year.

To put that in perspective, Donte' Stallworth got in a car drunk at 7:00 one morning and hit a construction worker who darted out in the middle of the street, killing him. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter, and served 24 days of a 30-day sentence. Technically, he's suspended from football, but he's expected to play most of the year.

The thinking goes, Vick was running an interstate gambling ring, while Stallworth wasn't really to blame, he probably would have hit the worker even if he was sober. Stallworth is only a few years younger than I am; I'm guessing he had pretty much the same driving instruction I did, which means he spent a lot of time with people yelling, "don't drink and drive!" at him.

Drinking and then getting behind the wheel is pretty close to the worst thing you can do as a human, we were more or less told in driver's ed, high school, youth groups, college, you name it.

I'm not saying Vick's a good guy for fighting pitbulls and killing the weak and the old ones. That's despicable, too. But he's paid a debt to society and to his career. This additional suspension is going to damn this season for him, too.

Anybody willing to spend Michael Vick money probably needs a quarterback now, not in Week 6. Sure, he can practice now, which means a team could sign him and start working with him, but he'd miss the first few games. Enough games to put a team out of it, if they have to go with their second- or third-choice quarterback.

Now that Brett Favre has actually retired (we think), maybe the Vikings would be willing to live with Tarvaris Jackson for a few weeks and then look at Vick to bail them out the rest of the way. I can't see him going anywhere else.

Any team willing to take him would, of course, have to deal with the protests from animal rights groups, who always turn out in force when they're angry. Personally, that's a headache I'm willing to deal with as an owner—sure they're loud, but it's not like they're football fans. Ticket sales aren't going to suffer.

Fighting pitbulls? Bad. Spending 18 months at Leavenworth and another 5 under house arrest? Adequate punishment. Further keeping him out of the career he has made for himself? Really, you're just giving him a month and a half to get back into trouble.

In case you missed it, Mike Williams is in my hometown this fall, taking classes at Springfield Technical Community College in hopes of getting back onto the Syracuse University football team in 2009. Ryan Miller interviewed him.

It almost seemed orchestrated when this dude started climbing over the seat in front of him, and his buddy yanked his shirt. Dude slid back into his chair without spilling a drop of beer.

Two things you should know about me before I continue:

(a) I'm not a college sports fan; I'm not going to justify that to you, just know that I grew up very much attached to the Red Sox, Celtics and Patriots, and never really had a reason to follow sports at the college level.

(b) I'm a Syracuse transplant, as of five years ago. The only real reason I have to root for Syracuse University athletics is that this town in general, and my work environment in particular, is absolutely miserable when the Orange are losing.

When a friend asked me why no one was going to football games, I told her that if you want butts in seats, you have to put a good product on the field, and, failing that, you have to play in an arena that is enough of an attraction to bring people in.

I asserted the SU football team had neither going for it. I also had to admit I had never been to a football game at the Carrier Dome, although I have been there for basketball games and other, non-sporting events.

Also, I'm firmly of the opinion that football's an outdoor sport. Just saying.

So, that friend and her SO joined Mitch and me for the homecoming game on Saturday.

This was the Orange's first win of the season. And a little sad, considering that Northeastern also came into the game winless, but is in an entirely different division than Syracuse. That is, Syracuse beat a team that isn't expected to compete with any team at the Orange's level.

And only by nine points.

Also, take into account that this was homecoming weekend (always want to do your best to guarantee a win there), and that while the announced crowd was something like 36,000, there were actually more like 14,000 people there (the 36,000 is the "paid attendance" figure, so you're talking season ticket holders who don't come to every game, and since it's homecoming weekend, there were probably thousands of tickets comped to celebrity alums, class presidents, and others from the past 60 years who didn't show up).

So, yeah, this team is not the sort of product that draws people, and now having been to a football game at the Dome, I don't think the venue alone is drawing many people: the seats aren't comfortable unless you bring pads (if you haven't been there – they're actually bleachers, so you're very much bumping up against the people next to you), the concessions are even more expensive than at the local Triple-A ballpark, and you kind of feel like you're missing out on something that's going on in a different place if you walk the concourse during the game.